


Too Human

by letek



Series: New Q [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Angst, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Nemesis, Smut, post-first contact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:15:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26659555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letek/pseuds/letek
Summary: Q confronts Picard after an interesting night they shared together.
Relationships: Jean-Luc Picard/Q
Series: New Q [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1900426
Kudos: 28





	Too Human

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the first fic I wrote in this series. I was planning on having this be a stand-alone fic until I ended up writing a prequel, which is why I decided to make this into a series. So you don't technically have to read the first part of the series, but if you want the background of the story then that would probably be a good idea.

Picard sat at the desk in his quarters, hunched over a PADD that illuminated his face in the dimly lit room. He sighed and rubbed his hand over his forehead. His deteriorating mental health since the Borg attack and the countless sleepless nights were finally catching up to him. He had been very short-tempered with the crew recently, which made him feel even more awful. He knew that he needed to schedule an appointment with Counselor Troi but he was too busy. At least, that’s what he told himself. 

All of a sudden, his primal instincts alerted him that he was being watched, being hunted. He frantically looked around his quarters and nearly jumped out of his chair at the sight of a figure across the room. 

“How long have you been standing there?” 

“Time is of no importance to me, Jean-Luc.” 

Picard sighed, “Well, would you stop staring at me?” 

“Are you really going to deny me this one simple pleasure?” the figure purred. 

“Yes,” Picard went back to looking at the PADD that was laid out in front of him, but he could still feel the entity’s eyes boring through him. It was hard to concentrate. Over the past month or so, he’d been trying not to think about what happened between him and Q. It was a mistake. They were very vulnerable at the time and they both were in desperate need of companionship. It was nothing more. 

“Q, please. I have a lot of work to do and I don’t want to play any of your games right now.” 

“That certainly wasn’t the attitude you had towards me just a few weeks ago, mon cher.” 

Picard shot his eyes across the room, “Get off my ship, Q!” 

Q furrowed his brow, “Well if this is how you treat your lovers it’s no wonder you’re alone.” 

“We are not lovers! Please leave!” Picard slammed his hands onto the desk. Q didn’t speak for a moment- he simply looked at him, frowning. He could feel the confusion emanating from Q. 

Jean-Luc couldn’t take the silence any longer, “Don’t look at me like that!” 

There was an edge to his voice that he couldn’t shake. Q’s stare only strengthened it; the emotion that was expressed in his glance made the human uncomfortable. 

Finally, the entity spoke, “If you don’t wish to discuss what happened, then just say so, Picard. But don’t be so insulting as to pretend like things haven’t changed between us.” 

“There is no ‘us’, Q,” Jean-Luc scoffed at the idea. 

Q looked at him again, silent. He sat down on the chair in front of the desk and looked down at his hands before saying, “I broke my rules for you.” 

His voice was soft and vulnerable, it was like nothing Picard had ever heard Q utter. It frightened him. Just the sight of him now made Jean-Luc squirm. Here he was again: the person who had visited him only a few short weeks ago. This wasn’t Q; he didn’t act like this. He shouldn’t be acting like this. This entity was the “not-quite-Q" Q. The Q that had openly admitted to caring about him. The Q he had kissed. The Q he had shared his bed with. Picard didn’t want to talk to this Q right now, not ever. 

But after a while, Picard finally gave in, “What rules?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the rules about not getting attached to humans or any other lesser lifeforms. Maybe the rules about not participating in any disgusting physical displays of attraction. Or maybe-” 

“Okay. I get it.” 

Q glanced up and met Picard’s gaze. Jean-Luc could see the vulnerability in the entity’s eyes. He felt sorry now, for acting the way he did. As much as he wished he didn’t care about this Q, he did. 

“I don’t understand you, Jean-Luc. When we were together that night, you said that you cared about me. I _felt_ it. What happened?” 

Picard didn’t like the way that Q was behaving right now. He was being too open, too honest, too human. Just like he’d been the last night they were together. 

“I’m not supposed to care about you.” 

“But you do.” 

“I don’t want to,” Picard said that a little too harshly, a little too abruptly and wondered if it made Q hate him as much as it made him hate himself. 

Once again, the entity had gone silent. Picard thought that Q could sense his self-loathing and wanted to let him wallow in it for a while before he spoke again. He probably deserved that. 

When he realized that Q wasn’t going to say anything, he spoke up, “You just said that you don’t understand me. Well, Q, I don’t understand you. Why do you feel this way about me? I’m just a human and, as you’ve told me before, not a particularly important one.” 

Q stared into Picard’s eyes, “You’re not like anyone else, Jean-Luc.” 

“Oh, please. Spare me the theatrics,” he didn’t know why he was so angry, so on edge. He didn’t want to keep shutting down Q’s attempts to have a deeper conversation, but he couldn’t stop. 

Q stood up and scoffed, “I’d have thought that you would’ve been better at this, Picard.” 

“At what?” 

“Being human.” 

With that, Q disappeared- no snap of his fingers, no flash of light, no spectacle. He simply vanished, leaving Jean-Luc alone to think about what he’d done, like a misbehaving child. 

After a moment, Picard muttered to himself, “You’re one to talk.” 

Suddenly, there was a shrieking noise ringing in Jean-Luc’s ear and a blinding flash of light that brought Q along with it. Picard had barely regained his senses by the time he heard Q start to frantically speak. 

“Humans are so _disgustingly_ sentimental,” the entity spat. “They shamelessly embrace their primitive feelings and emotions; they thrive on them! But the great Jean-Luc Picard, representative of the human race, seems to be quite lacking in this little bit of humanity.” 

Q began to pace the floor in front of Picard’s desk, “Do you know how difficult it was for me to admit my stupid feelings for you? How difficult it is to sit here and open myself up to a _human_ and receive nothing in return? I despise the way I feel about you, but I can’t change it. And for you to behave in this manner towards me when I approach you sincerely, weeks after the incident, is frankly insulting. So no, Jean-Luc, I’m not a human, but I’m certainly the only one here who’s acting like one. That is not only shameful for me but even more so shameful for you.” 

Picard had begun to inspect his hands halfway through the speech- he couldn’t bear to look at Q. As he picked at his fingernails, he realized that he did feel ashamed. He had never been someone who embraced his emotions, especially an emotion such as this. From early on, emotions and feelings had never been a welcome presence in his life. Recently, he had gone so far as to completely push his emotions as far away from his thoughts as he could. Maybe now was the time to confront them. 

“I- I’m sorry, Q,” he didn’t know what else to say. He was embarrassed- embarrassed of his feelings and ashamed of his actions. He was an idiot. Even though he was still looking down at his hands, he could feel the entity’s eyes searing through him. This entire conversation made Picard painfully aware of how much Q’s silence uneased him. He heard footsteps approach his side and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Q’s hand moving toward his face. Q gently lifted Jean-Luc’s chin and moved it toward his direction, but Picard didn’t lift up his eyes. He didn’t want to see the emotions that were undoubtedly etched on Q’s face. 

With his hand still on Picard's chin, the entity spoke, “Jean-Luc, you are a stupid, stupid man.” 

Picard wondered when Q would leave, when he would stop being yelled at and feeling like a disappointment. He gathered enough courage to look up at Q’s face but instead of seeing a look of disappointment, he saw a look of adoration- the same one he had seen after he kissed him. 

The entity continued, “And I am a stupid, stupid Q.” 

Picard felt the corner of his mouth twitch upwards slightly and Q leaned down to press a light kiss there. Jean-Luc's chin slipped from Q’s hand as he went to stand up straight again. But before he could move any further, Picard’s hands came up and wrapped around the back of his head, pulling him into a deep kiss. Q opened his lips and allowed Jean-Luc's tongue to explore his mouth. It was a kiss that was desperate and all-consuming. 

Eventually, Picard broke away to take a breath and he looked into Q’s eyes. He could sense that Q was looking for the answer to an unspoken question. Knowing what was on his mind, Jean-Luc eagerly nodded his head up and down. With that, Q placed his hands at the bottom of Picard’s shirt and lifted it up over his head. His left hand moved over Jean-Luc's torso, while his right hand rested on his cheek as they continued devouring one another. Picard could feel his pants getting tighter and he desperately needed to be rid of them. 

“The bed,” he whispered. 

Q immediately transported them to the bedroom and did away with their clothing in the process. Picard had never felt more relieved. As Q moved on top of him, he groaned at the contact of their hard cocks touching. Jean-Luc laced his fingers through Q’s hair and deepened their kiss even more. He felt Q’s tongue dart across his mouth as he pushed his hips up to meet Q’s. Q groaned as he bit Picard’s bottom lip. Jean-Luc reached down and grasped both of their members in his right hand and slowly began to jerk them up and down, feeling their combined precum dripping into his hand. The wetness slicked their cocks and Picard sped up his movement. Q moaned into his mouth, and he could already feel the pressure inside of him building up. Jean-Luc heard a breath catch in Q’s throat as he swiftly pushed his body down to the bed and rolled on top of him. With Q laying on his back and Picard kneeling over him, he could now focus solely on their pleasure. Jean-Luc spat into his hand and returned it to their throbbing cocks. Moving his hand up and down, he could once again feel the pressure in his abdomen building. Q began to thrust his hips into Picard’s hand, speeding up the rhythm. Jean-Luc knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold out for very much longer. A growl escaped from the back of his throat as Q continued thrusting. Picard couldn’t handle all of the friction anymore and felt his body quake as his cum shot into the air and landed on Q’s stomach. The combination of Jean-Luc's orgasm and the extra slickness from his cum caused Q to explode only moments later. The human tried to catch his breath as he drank in the sight of the entity succumbing to earthly pleasures. 

“Not bad for a ‘disgusting physical display of attraction’, huh?” Picard teased him. 

Q opened the eyes that had been tightly shut throughout his orgasm. He looked the man up and down and smirked, “Just because it feels good doesn’t mean it’s not objectively disgusting, Jean-Luc.” 

Picard laughed and looked at Q’s sticky stomach and chest, “You may have a point; it can get rather messy.” 

Q snapped his fingers and all of the fluid and sweat on his body disappeared. Picard flopped onto the other side of the bed next to Q. They laid there in silence for a few minutes, reveling in the post-orgasmic haze. 

For a moment, Jean-Luc feared that Q had left. He thought that he might have vanished without another word or goodbye. But when he turned his head, he found Q to still be lying next to him, staring at the ceiling. Picard wanted to tell him how sorry he was for not being able to talk about his feelings, for making it seem like he didn’t care about him anymore. He wanted to tell Q that he was actually very flattered to have gained the affection of a being such as himself. But he couldn’t bring himself to say any of that right now. Instead, he rolled onto his side and put his hand on Q’s chest. After a while, he broke their companionable silence. 

“You don’t have to stay here, you know.” 

“Do you want me to leave?” 

Picard thought for a moment, “No.” 

Q placed his hand over Jean-Luc's, “Then I won’t.” 

Picard closed his eyes and smiled, basking in the feeling of being held in Q’s arms once again. He decided that he didn’t want to push away this emotion that he felt when he was with Q. This one simple feeling, he could embrace. 

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if I'll write another story for this series or not, depends on if inspiration strikes. Thanks for reading!!!


End file.
